Of these four recordings, the oldest, made in the early 1970s, presents the most varied portrait of Carissimi. Although the style of performance is rather dated (most notably the string sound and articulation), the soloists for the title roles of Ezekiah, Abraham and Isaac (all sadly anonymous in Erato’s booklet) are effective and moving protagonists. The works show Carissimi at his best: the two oratorios are very fine, and the eight-voice Mass, though something of a surprise in relation to the rest, is a skilful piece of contrapuntal display in stilo antico, carried off with real panache both by Carissimi and by the Choir and Orchestra of the Gulbenkian Foundation under Michel Corboz.

Adopting a similar approach to programming, Le Parlement de Musique under Martin Gester present the oratorio Jephte and a diptych of sacred tableaux setting the lamentations of the damned against the joys of the elect. The framework is that of a concerto spirituale in mid-17th-century Rome, which explains the insertion of shorter pieces by Frescobaldi and Colista. Gester’s reading of Jephte I would describe as very solid rather than consistently inspired; neither the voices nor the instrumentalists seem fully on top of the drama, and not much is made of the story’s pathos. The whole performance feels rushed.

In the small-scale pieces the intonation can be quite off-putting (the opening of Colista’s Sinfonia in B flat is a case in point). From Le Parlement de Musique, whose recordings have so often been stylish and well-nigh flawless, this is surprising. But with these caveats in mind, the programme is imaginatively conceived: at the start of the oratorio we are offered a ‘reconstruction’ of André Maugars’s now celebrated description of Frescobaldi improvising at the harpsichord ‘while the organ [holds] long notes’. This is just the sort of (re)creative touch that seems to bring us closer to the music-making of the period.

The recitals from Concerto delle Donne and Ensemble Seraphim focus almost exclusively on small-scale cantatas and motets. Indeed, it is no easy thing to separate them, critically speaking: with three sopranos and two continuo players in both recordings, the forces are pretty much identical. For those to whom such things matter, the Signum disc is the more generous; more seriously, the very fine instrumental interludes add variety and allow the continuo players to distinguish themselves (Rossi’s obsessively chromatic Toccata is quite an experience).

Elsewhere, the spotlight is, quite rightly, on the singers. The Danish voices are rather more full-bodied than their English counterparts. They also benefit from a slightly fuller sound recording. But as regards general approach, the two ensembles are remarkably similar in both their virtues and their shortcomings. The English are indeed the more agile, and they have a very slight edge in matters of intonation; on the other hand, the Danes’ tone is more differentiated and characterful. So rather than ‘pick a winner’ I will trade one cliché for another and declare that the real winner here is Carissimi, whose discography is beginning to look very respectable indeed.